To what extent is that based on air conditioning though? If we are reliant on air conditioning to stay within the survival zone, will we be edging towards a future where we are one power plant...
“Sometimes these human survivability limits are useful to understand the problem, but the reality is that we see a significant health burden on the population even at ‘moderate’ temperatures,” says Dann Mitchell at the University of Bristol, UK, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Using a threshold-based temperature can be misleading, because even if it’s hot outside, it doesn’t mean that it’s hot inside.”
To what extent is that based on air conditioning though? If we are reliant on air conditioning to stay within the survival zone, will we be edging towards a future where we are one power plant failure away from a mass casualty event?
I mean, obviously you need air conditioning to survive temperatures past the point of human survivability. That's just not going to change. But this scientist's point is that there are absolutely...
I mean, obviously you need air conditioning to survive temperatures past the point of human survivability. That's just not going to change. But this scientist's point is that there are absolutely more "moderate" temperatures that can still kill people and cause serious negative health impacts on even more people, and we should also care about those. There's too much focus on the "physically impossible for humans to survive in" threshold rather than the existing "people suffering from high temperatures" problem that is much more widespread.
Air conditioning is one of the more effective ways to help prevent some of those impacts, since it actively combats the high temperatures (and, in many cases, humidities) that cause these negative outcomes, but as you say this isn't without risks -- it requires a lot of power and a stable-ass powergrid to boot. Absent the ability to immediately reverse the climate change causing this, though, it's probably our strongest tool in places where this is a problem. Hopefully not our only solution, but it's simply not a tool we can disregard when it comes to helping people survive rising global temperatures.
Michael Le Page Heat-related deaths Wet-bulb temperature Real world range Where wet-bulb temperatures may occur Observational and model evidence together support wide-spread exposure to...
Michael Le Page
As the world warms beyond 1.5°C, large parts of the world will start to have heatwaves so extreme that healthy young people could die within several hours if they fail to find respite, a study has warned.
This could result in mass deaths in places where people and buildings aren’t adapted to extreme heat and air conditioning is rare, says Carter Powis at the University of Oxford.
Heat-related deaths
It is estimated that there were 62,000 heat-related deaths across Europe in the summer of 2022, for instance. However, the vast majority of these were people aged over 65 who may have had existing health issues.
Could global warming result in parts of the world getting so hot that even healthy young people die? Matthew Huber at Purdue University, Indiana, and his colleagues set out to investigate this question in 2010.
Wet-bulb temperature
Based on theory, they decided the limit of survivability is when the temperature measured by a thermometer covered in a wet cloth exceeds 35°C (95°F). This is the so-called wet-bulb temperature.
At this wet-bulb reading we can no longer keep core body temperature in check naturally and it will rise to deadly levels if we don’t take action to stay cool in other ways.
Huber’s team concluded that large areas would only start to exceed the 35°C wet bulb limit if the world warmed by more than 7°C – which is thought highly unlikely.
Real world range
In practice most people couldn’t survive anything close to a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C. “The original 35-degree limit was meant always as an upper limit,” says Huber.
Last year, Daniel Vecellio at Pennsylvania State University and his colleagues suggested that the survivability limit is closer to a 31°C wet-bulb reading, though other factors will affect this in reality.
Because the subjects of the study weren’t acclimatised to heat and were doing everyday tasks during the tests, this should be seen as a lower limit with a 35°C wet-bulb temperature being the upper limit, says Powis. “Anything between those two is very much in the danger zone,” he says.
Where wet-bulb temperatures may occur
Powis and his colleagues have now used data from weather stations and climate models to see where in the world such conditions may currently occur based on Vecellio’s 31°C wet-bulb findings, and how this will change at the world warms.
For example, In the US, 20 per cent of stations are likely to pass the threshold more than once in 100 years with 1°C global warming, rising to 28 per cent for 2°C.
“Sometimes these human survivability limits are useful to understand the problem, but the reality is that we see a significant health burden on the population even at ‘moderate’ temperatures,” says Dann Mitchell at the University of Bristol, UK, who wasn’t involved in the study.
“I would like to highlight that all heat-related impacts on human health and well-being are preventable,” says Raquel Nunes at the University of Warwick in the UK.
But with heatwaves becoming more frequent, more intense and more prolonged, urgent action is needed to prevent more heat-related deaths, she says.
There are ways to adapt. And we will. It hasn't been a thing for decades but the underground home was a bit of a fad when I was young. They didnt get very popular but there were a few developers...
There are ways to adapt. And we will.
It hasn't been a thing for decades but the underground home was a bit of a fad when I was young. They didnt get very popular but there were a few developers building homes into the sides of hills. Typically the back half of the house was embedded into the hill and the front was the exposed area with large glass windows. Without AC these homes remained quite moderated in temperature, cooler in summer and warmer in winter, because of the moderating effect of the earth surrounding it.
Im also noting a big rise in split unit heat pumps, which can cool (and heat) air much more efficiently than AC units. Those may easily become common place in new homes and the most efficient ones can run off solar panels so people can have electrical independence and cooling in the middle of a heat wave.
Of course some people will adapt but thats not the point of the article and its a pretty messed up thing to focus on. Yes, well to do people with air conditioning and heat pump systems will...
Of course some people will adapt but thats not the point of the article and its a pretty messed up thing to focus on. Yes, well to do people with air conditioning and heat pump systems will survive, huzzah.
What about all of the labourers that dont live in these houses? Renters of shitty landlords that dont bother to upkeep the home? People who cant afford fancy new homes half dug into hills? People who work outside for a living building said homes? Many people will die is the point of the article, potentially even more than the usual global south deaths weve come to just collectively ignore.
It's not even that. What of the Global South that is going to be (or continue to be) disproporitionally shafted by these changes?
What about all of the labourers that dont live in these houses? Renters of shitty landlords that dont bother to upkeep the home? People who cant afford fancy new homes half dug into hills? People who work outside for a living building said homes? Many people will die is the point of the article, potentially even more than the usual global south deaths weve come to just collectively ignore.
It's not even that. What of the Global South that is going to be (or continue to be) disproporitionally shafted by these changes?
Exactly! I read about a likely outcome of the next two decades or so, which put roughly Madrid's (current) temperatures to the (future) climate around the latitude of Berlin. I was left wondering...
It's not even that. What of the Global South that is going to be (or continue to be) disproporitionally shafted by these changes?
Exactly! I read about a likely outcome of the next two decades or so, which put roughly Madrid's (current) temperatures to the (future) climate around the latitude of Berlin.
I was left wondering at the time after reading this: Will Madrid's temperature be "shifted northwards" by that much too, further increasing Spain's desertification? And what about e.g. the north Saharan regions then?
I hate to be this particularly cynical in a relatively old thread... Considering how, in the last 60 years or so, America regularly intervened in Latin America for bananas and people moved on, and...
It's not even that. What of the Global South that is going to be (or continue to be) disproporitionally shafted by these changes?
I hate to be this particularly cynical in a relatively old thread...
Considering how, in the last 60 years or so, America regularly intervened in Latin America for bananas and people moved on, and how France did similar things in Africa, and how it has little political consequences?
I'd say its likely that little will be done. More migration sure, but most people stuck in Africa, especially in the centre and close to the ever expanding Sahara desert, will just die. With the booming population in Africa in particular that's likely to cause more ethnic, political and economic strive.
An exception would be possible I suppose if the west moved many production investments from China to many of the countries, as well as very successful aid, but I wouldn't count on it for many reasons. I consider it likely that many people in those countries will die due to us not wanting to constrain economic growth for environmental reasons.
To what extent is that based on air conditioning though? If we are reliant on air conditioning to stay within the survival zone, will we be edging towards a future where we are one power plant failure away from a mass casualty event?
I mean, obviously you need air conditioning to survive temperatures past the point of human survivability. That's just not going to change. But this scientist's point is that there are absolutely more "moderate" temperatures that can still kill people and cause serious negative health impacts on even more people, and we should also care about those. There's too much focus on the "physically impossible for humans to survive in" threshold rather than the existing "people suffering from high temperatures" problem that is much more widespread.
Air conditioning is one of the more effective ways to help prevent some of those impacts, since it actively combats the high temperatures (and, in many cases, humidities) that cause these negative outcomes, but as you say this isn't without risks -- it requires a lot of power and a stable-ass powergrid to boot. Absent the ability to immediately reverse the climate change causing this, though, it's probably our strongest tool in places where this is a problem. Hopefully not our only solution, but it's simply not a tool we can disregard when it comes to helping people survive rising global temperatures.
Isn't that exactly what happened in Texas a few years ago, just with the cold? Imagine that, but with the heat instead.
Michael Le Page
Heat-related deaths
Wet-bulb temperature
Real world range
Where wet-bulb temperatures may occur
Observational and model evidence together support wide-spread exposure to noncompensable heat under continued global warming - by Powis, Byrne, Zobel, Gassert, Lute, and Schwalm
There are ways to adapt. And we will.
It hasn't been a thing for decades but the underground home was a bit of a fad when I was young. They didnt get very popular but there were a few developers building homes into the sides of hills. Typically the back half of the house was embedded into the hill and the front was the exposed area with large glass windows. Without AC these homes remained quite moderated in temperature, cooler in summer and warmer in winter, because of the moderating effect of the earth surrounding it.
Im also noting a big rise in split unit heat pumps, which can cool (and heat) air much more efficiently than AC units. Those may easily become common place in new homes and the most efficient ones can run off solar panels so people can have electrical independence and cooling in the middle of a heat wave.
Of course some people will adapt but thats not the point of the article and its a pretty messed up thing to focus on. Yes, well to do people with air conditioning and heat pump systems will survive, huzzah.
What about all of the labourers that dont live in these houses? Renters of shitty landlords that dont bother to upkeep the home? People who cant afford fancy new homes half dug into hills? People who work outside for a living building said homes? Many people will die is the point of the article, potentially even more than the usual global south deaths weve come to just collectively ignore.
It's not even that. What of the Global South that is going to be (or continue to be) disproporitionally shafted by these changes?
Exactly! I read about a likely outcome of the next two decades or so, which put roughly Madrid's (current) temperatures to the (future) climate around the latitude of Berlin.
I was left wondering at the time after reading this: Will Madrid's temperature be "shifted northwards" by that much too, further increasing Spain's desertification? And what about e.g. the north Saharan regions then?
I hate to be this particularly cynical in a relatively old thread...
Considering how, in the last 60 years or so, America regularly intervened in Latin America for bananas and people moved on, and how France did similar things in Africa, and how it has little political consequences?
I'd say its likely that little will be done. More migration sure, but most people stuck in Africa, especially in the centre and close to the ever expanding Sahara desert, will just die. With the booming population in Africa in particular that's likely to cause more ethnic, political and economic strive.
An exception would be possible I suppose if the west moved many production investments from China to many of the countries, as well as very successful aid, but I wouldn't count on it for many reasons. I consider it likely that many people in those countries will die due to us not wanting to constrain economic growth for environmental reasons.